


Down the Rabbit Hole

by vellaky



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4962856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vellaky/pseuds/vellaky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby hurts herself. Regina takes care of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbit Hole

“So tell me,” Regina asks as she settles an icepack on Ruby’s ankle, and adjusts the heatpack around her neck. “Exactly how did you manage to do this to yourself?” 

Ruby just pouts and offers her left hand to Regina to take care of. It’s grazed up to her elbow, but it’s nothing serious. “I fell. Before the transition,” is all she offers.

“Mmhmm,” Regina hums, preparing the iodine. “I’ve seen you run in pumps. You’re not a clumsy girl, Ruby.” Regina hovers over Ruby’s grazes with some cotton wool soaked in the disinfectant. “This is gonna sting,” she murmurs. Just as she suspects, her big bad wolf winces in pain and hisses. She’s pretty sure Ruby is just laying that part on thick. Regina doesn’t say anything though. Just keeps dabbing gently. “I’m going to assume that this happened _during_ your run as the wolf last night. Because if this had happened _before_ , you wouldn’t have changed. You’d have been here, sulking, with me. And I’m basing that theory on the fact that I woke up to the sound of you scratching at our front door this morning.”

“Wow. You could put Emma out of a job,” Ruby deadpans.

Regina ignores her as she puts the cotton wool and iodine back on the side table. “And I _know_ you’re not stupid enough to keep an attack secret from me.” She looks up at Ruby pointedly. “Again.”

“That was one time.”

“One time too many, as far as I’m concerned.”

Ruby remains tight-lipped.

“Come on dear. Out with it.”

Ruby’s pout is back again. “I’m injured. And in pain. And you’re interrogating me?” She takes the icepack off her ankle, and the heatpack off her neck and swaps their positions. “I hope you weren’t this horrible to Henry when he came back with bumps and scrapes,” she mumbles. Regina only rolls her eyes.

“Henry was never this secretive about his very minor, and very rare injuries.” Regina was also with Henry at every turn during his childhood. She never missed a thing.

“Yes, well I’m sure rabbits were never involved either,” Ruby mutters bitterly. Regina blinks. Ruby winces. “Oh please tell me you did not hear that…”

She bites her lower lip to keep from laughing, because it looks like Ruby is actually in quite a bit of pain, and it might be a little rude to not to be sympathetic. “Rabbits?” Regina repeats. She gestures to Ruby’s body. “All of this… because of a rabbit?”

“Rab _bits_ ,” Ruby growls. “Plural. More than one.”

Rolling her eyes, Regina leans in and presses a soft kiss to Ruby’s cheek. “Tell me what happened,” she probes softly.

Ruby sighs. “I was chasing rabbits -”

“As you do.”

“As I do. And the buggers blindsided me. They jumped over a fallen tree, and I didn’t see it and… down I went.”

She tries. She tries really, so very hard. But she can’t contain it. Regina snorts in a way that's not at all becoming for a Queen and finally lets out the laugh she had been holding in.

“Regina!”

And the queen reins it in, because it actually sounds like she’s upset Ruby. Regina reaches out to lay a hand on Ruby’s thigh. “I’m sorry dear. I am. And I’m not laughing at your or your injuries. It’s just the picture you painted… it’s rather comical to say the least.”

Ruby frowns. “You wait until the day you fall on your ass. I’m gonna be there. Laughing my head off.”

“I’m far too poised for that, dear,” Regina tells her, patting Ruby’s thigh. “You may be waiting a lifetime before it happens.”

“Sometimes, I have no idea what I see in you.”

“Excuse me!” Regina lets out indignantly. “I took care of you, didn’t I? Tended to your injuries?”

“Yes,” Ruby says grudgingly. “You also laughed. At my expense. I hope your bedside manner is better.”

Regina sighs. Ruby has succeeded in making her feel guilty. She takes her uninjured hand in her own and links their fingers. “I’m sorry I laughed. I guess it was so far from what I was expecting, that I was kind of relieved it wasn’t anything serious.” She brings her free hand up to cups Ruby’s face. “But I would _never_ laugh at your expense Ruby.”

The two women hold each other’s gaze for a beat before Ruby turns her head to kiss Regina’s palm. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I _am_ lucky,” Regina agrees through a smile. She leans in to press another soft kiss to Ruby’s lips and starts to get up off the couch. “Now. Put your feet up properly, and relax. I’m going to make some tea.”

“And then you’re going to sit with me while we binge watch Breaking Bad, right?”

Regina bites her tongue. She _detests_ that show. She also can’t sit still for hours on end watching that dribble box. She turns back to look at Ruby, only to see her wearing that look. The one that undoes her and makes her bend to Ruby’s every whim, and she finds herself nodding. “Of course, dear.” The grin that spreads across Ruby’s face reminds Regina why it’s okay to say ‘yes’ sometimes.

“Maybe it’s me who’s the lucky one, then?”

And Regina rolls her eyes. No one’s ever considered themselves ‘lucky’ to be involved in Regina’s life. She shakes her head as she prepares her tea. No. _She’s_ definitely the lucky one.


End file.
